London, June 14 (IANS): What the rest of the world calls football, people in the US call soccer. Now, historians have discovered that the term 'soccer' originated in Britain and comes from Association Football.
The word soccer originated in Britain at the end of the 19th century and was commonly used there, the findings showed.
"Americans have long referred to Association Football as 'soccer', to the point where many people believe it is fact the word was invented in America," wrote Stefan Szymanski, professor at University of Michigan in the US.
"It appears that as the popularity of soccer has grown in the US, the word has been used less and less," Szymanski added.
The researchers analysed usage of the two words from 1900, and found Britons only stopped using the word soccer about 30 years ago.
People in the US invented their own variant of the game that they simply called 'football' in the early 1900s.
'Association Football' became 'soccer' in the US, and what was called 'gridiron' in Britain became simply 'football' in the US, Daily Mail reported.